


From Start To Beginning

by SpaceFarm



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Rewrite, Experimental writing, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Idiots in Love, Mutual Pining, Royai - Freeform, and some hints at suicidal thoughts, mentions of blood and death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:53:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 14,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24260890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceFarm/pseuds/SpaceFarm
Summary: He hasn’t told her about the plan yet—he hasn’t even told Hughes, yet, not the whole of it, because they’re still surrounded by blue coats and gold stars and he’s pretty sure overthrowing the Amestrian government counts as treason no matter how legal it might technically be, so it’s best he keeps quiet for now—but he wonders how long he can put off asking her.He needs people he can trust to make this work. He needs people he can trust in the military for this to work. He needs her, in the military, for this to work.He watches her sleep and wonders why the cost of saving the world has to be so steep.***A Royai rewrite that starts with their first meeting and goes until post-canon. Mostly an excuse to write down some headcanons :)
Relationships: Riza Hawkeye/Roy Mustang
Comments: 24
Kudos: 65





	1. Childhood

**Author's Note:**

> So, I started this months ago as an attempt to write my first multi-chapter fic and also work on my non-dialogue writing. This story *technically* doesn't have any dialogue because there are zero quote tags, but I uh. also sort of cheated in a lot of places with liberal italic use, so. Anyways! It was a fun exercise either way. 
> 
> I love thinking about all the in-betweens of Royai (especially young Royai and Royai immediately post-war), so I hope that this is a fun read if you like that sort of thing too.

They’re just kids when they meet. And it’s nothing special, not really. Just an ordinary introduction on an ordinary day, with drizzling rain and overcast clouds.

Roy, at the grand age of fourteen, finds his thoughts are swirling around on the subject of his own miserably damp clothes and his dripping hair, as well as his slowly mounting feeling of homesickness, of the wrongness of the air and the wood and the grass beneath his feet, and of a multitude of other things that always seem to occur to people when they leave home for the first time.

Riza, at a mere eleven, thoughts are solidly clamped somewhere in the realm of fear. There will be a stranger in her home, a strange _boy_ in her home, and she’s already got enough to worry about with her father being the way he is—so _focused,_ so _diligent,_ the townsfolk say, but they haven’t seen him when he’s come out of his room after two days of isolation and _focused, diligent_ research.

They shake hands and don't meet the other's eye. 

It takes a week for the rain to clear, and another for the worst of Roy’s homesickness to fade away into a dull sort of ache. After that, though, he starts to notice the stares and timid smiles, the ducked heads and sleepy nods.

In the end, Roy comes to realize something. Riza’s the cutest kid he’s ever seen in his life.

She’s eleven years old, she says in that soft little voice of hers, but she’s still so _tiny,_ and her smile is so _cute,_ and she’ll come and peek over his shoulder when he’s scribbling out alchemy circles like it’s the best thing she’s ever seen, and Roy thinks he’s never wanted to smile so much in his life.

She doesn’t leave the house much. Her father pays for a tutor to come to the manor, and he insists she stay indoors most days, and he strictly forbids her to have anything to do with alchemy (to have anything to do with her own father, by connection), and she listens, because Roy’s never met a kid so obedient. But Roy sees the way she folds in on herself, sometimes, like she’s _afraid,_ and he wishes he could help somehow.

It’s not anything, not really, but he starts by asking her things. Questions, he finds, can do a million different things— _how do you like school, Riza, would you like to play a game of chess, can I get you something in town while I’m there—_

And she answers, and he slowly comes to realize just how _brilliant_ she is sometimes—she’ll say something clever, she’ll beat him in chess, she’ll sneak her father’s handgun into the garden and show him how he can peg a can at 100 yards.

Roy realizes, one day, that… well, is it crazy to think that this kid is the best person he’s ever met?

Riza knows Roy’s the best person she’s ever met the minute, the _moment_ Roy first smiles at her.

Her father doesn’t smile like that, and neither do her classmates. She thinks it must be an odd quirk of Roy’s, at first, some city-slicker trait that makes him smile so wide, so often—but then, she’s met people from Central before and none of them have offered to play _chess_ with her.

Roy catches her staring at him, one day, staring at that strange smile of his, and he only smiles wider as she flushes beet-red and mumbles some excuse to leave. She doesn’t think he really gets it, doesn’t get the steadily growing _crush_ she has on him, or else he’d be just as embarrassed as she is, and she’s grateful, for once, that someone doesn’t understand how she feels.

He talks about his dreams sometimes, when they’re spending an afternoon together. He’ll tell her, with a carefree confidence that makes her blink, about his decidedly _un-_ carefree wish to help people, and how his aunt makes fun of him for it but he’s determined to change the world. He wants to stop wars and save lives and make Amestris better and safer and _that’s_ why he’s studying alchemy.

Riza thinks it’s wonderful. Awe-inspiring, even. How can one boy be so selfless?

Roy leaves at the end of the summer. He’ll be back next year, he says, and he hopes that Riza understands. She does, even though she walks back from the train station feeling like a soggy piece of toast.

They write. It helps. But a year passes slowly, and even slower when you’re waiting for something.

A few years and a few summers later and he’s seventeen—on the cusp of graduation. He’s learned to take things a little more seriously. He’s almost mastered the basics of alchemy, now, and Berthold is letting him work on the important things, helping him here and there with notes that look _decidedly_ like oxygen manipulation—

Riza, newly fourteen and with the stubborn streak to prove it, pulls him out of his work, every once in a while, taking him hunting or fishing or just bringing him to the kitchen to help her with dinner. She’ll ask him to come along in that soft voice of hers, never demanding, always just _asking,_ like he’s the one doing her a favor—but, of course, if he’s stubborn, she’ll flash him a sly smile, whipping out one of his own taunts to use against him (a surprising development that takes him off guard the first time she does it—who knew Riza liked to _tease?_ ).

He’s proud of her, in a way. She’s started standing up to her father more, started talking with the village children her age. And she’s a wonderful friend. And, she’s—she’s just—brilliant.

He crosses that note out of his notebook, heat rising to his face.

It’s been a few years, and Riza’s learned to stand up for herself. She ignores her father when he snaps at her, and she refuses to cook when he refuses to come to dinner. She’s the top of her class in everything, now, in part because Roy’s been tutoring her, in part because she’s willing to study through the night if that’s what it takes. And her childhood crush isn’t—she’s not—well, she’s only a _little_ smitten with Roy. He’s a nice boy, after all, and handsome, and smarter than anyone she’s ever met but not the least bit boastful and—

And she catches Roy giving her too-soft looks sometimes, before he snaps his gaze away. He brings his work into whatever room she’s sitting in, and they spend hours in silence together, his posture stiff with hours of strain but his smile inconceivably blissful. When she asks him to come fishing with her, he drags the trip out, spending hours lounging in the sunlight with her, a book tucked up against his knees.

She wonders, idly, where he learned to be so charming and warm and hardworking all wrapped up in one. That aunt of his, maybe, the one that he pretends to complain about.

But she flushes when she catches him staring again, his eyes half-lidded and his smile infectious, and it makes her wonder whether things like that things like that can’t be taught.

He tells her he’s joining the military. He shows her the papers. He reiterates his dreams.

She walks him to the train station after her father gives him a black eye, and she tells him she couldn’t be more proud.

The academy doesn’t give leave, not really, but he promises to make time to visit. Riza says she might even come out to Central.

Two years is a long time to be apart, after all.

He’s twenty, when he comes back. He never did manage to visit, but then, neither did Riza. He thinks it’s alright, if a little regrettable, until he sees the bloody towel in Riza’s hands and the empty look on her face—the glossed-over eyes, the limp mouth, the way her gaze stops just an inch from his own.

He goes upstairs, meaning to help, somehow, if he can—anything to help the Hawkeyes, anything to help relieve that _emptiness_ that Riza’s taken upon herself. He’s come here with a request, but that can wait, can’t it? He should help, first, as he’s always said he would.

He means to help. He _does._ He doesn’t mean to start an argument, and he doesn’t mean to watch his master die, and he doesn’t mean to call for Riza, but he’s not thinking, and he _does_ , and she sees everything.

Master Hawkeye leaves Riza an orphan at seventeen.

Planning the funeral is the _least_ Roy can do, he thinks. He knows that Master Hawkeye left Riza next to nothing. Shelling out a few thousand cenz is the least, _the least,_ he can do for Riza, for the girl that’s so bright and brilliant, for the girl who he had grown up with, for the girl who stumbled in to see her father’s fresh corpse, only to stare at it like some unspeakable monster or unspeakable gift—or, perhaps, some unholy combination of the two.

Riza is quiet, even when she’s talking. It’s like she’s eleven years old again, shy and distant. He hears her wandering around the manor at night, restless, with tight lips and eyes trained on the floor. He retrieves her, one night, leading her back to her bed, nearly terrified at the lack of protest as he pulls the covers over her taut form.

He retreats back to his room, dazed, wondering why he couldn’t do more.

Riza doesn’t shed a tear.

The tattoo is still a vivid welt across her back when Roy comes—her father had completed it only days ago. Despite that, the real brand is forged into her mind in the shape of twisting nightmares. She wanders the manor at night, trying to stay awake, but Roy is there and shepherds her back to bed more often than not. He doesn’t understand.

At least, not until she shows it to him.

She had accepted the tattoo willingly, she tells Roy, when he sees it for the first time, and she wonders if that will be enough. But when he doesn’t say a word, she finds herself telling him the whole story—the one too riddled with horrors and doubts and shame to tell anyone else, but that she knows he will listen to anyway. Despite it all, despite the way the array hisses against her skin, her voice remains flat with the same sort of numbness that she had become accustomed to over the past week.

Still, he doesn’t say a word when she finishes; only puts his jacket around her, hiding the tattoo—hiding _her_ , hiding a part of her, hiding her newly held burden that she will never truly be free of again _—_ and hugs her, hold her tight, weeps for her into her shoulder.

She’s surprised, and furious, when she begins to weep with him, her weight slowly falling against his, both of them eventually slipping to the floor.

He stays as long as he can, but there’s a phone call, and Riza gets to it before he can. They ask her to pass on a message: Roy’s to come back or lose his military standing. There’s no chance, after that—every other sentence is a reassurance from Riza that _it’s alright to go, Mr. Mustang, I’ll be fine on my own, really, I appreciate everything you’ve done but you need to pursue your dreams._

Roy leaves, eventually, but there’s a piece of him that’s torn from him, that stays there in that manor, no matter what he does to uproot it.

He _knows_ the military is the right path, but Riza is only seventeen years old and he’s leaving her in the house where she was tortured (because that’s the only word to describe it, nothing else, none of the other neutral terms that Riza uses to get around it). He asked the women in the village to look after her, to check on her every once in a while, but there’s only so much Riza will allow them to do.

She gave him her Flame Alchemy. She encouraged him to leave and change the world. She looked at him, expression broken, and told him that his dreams were the only decent thing left in the world. He told her that couldn’t be true—Riza herself was decent, far more than decent. She was wonderful. She smiled, bitterly, and turned her face away.

He can’t help but feel like leaving her is dangerous.

He leaves, but there’s a piece of him that Riza keeps.

His dreams, to be specific—but then, she knows that he must have taken those with him; it was the only thing that convinced him to leave—so maybe it’s not really a piece of him at all, but an entirely new thing, growing in the corner of her soul, a piece of _herself_ that connects her to him.

A belief in doing good. A belief in moving forward. A belief in Amestris.

Roy told her she was wonderful. She’s not sure she believes that—she’s too wrapped up, now, with her father’s tattoo, and if she thinks one good, she must consider the other—but she knows she believes _in_ him. His arrival in the wake of so many awful things is an omen, she decides, a prophecy that she will latch onto and never let go—if just because it’s the only thing she has left.

She submits her enlistment forms the day after his train leaves for Central. She packs her father’s cracked leather suitcase. She doesn’t bother locking the door when she leaves, walks to the train station, and asks, _please, would you tell me what station Mr. Mustang was headed towards?_


	2. The War

They don’t write. There’s not time, in between Roy’s first few trial runs in Ishval and Riza’s specialized marksmanship training. They’re both gaining renown in their own circles—the Flame Alchemist and the Hawk’s Eye, and they don’t have time to send silly notes.

It only gets worse as things progress. Roy’s assignments turn horrifying _,_ and Riza is shipped out for her final year at the Academy and realizes, finally, with all the abruptness of a body hitting dirt, that she’s shooting to _kill_.

It’s suddenly a different world. She’s not Riza, she’s Cadet Hawkeye. He’s not Roy, he’s Major Mustang. And, of course, they’re both killers.

He’s saved by a bullet through an Ishvalan skull. He looks up, panic and bile rising in his throat as he reaches for his gloves—

Hughes says something. He looks up.

He pales, and he hopes Hughes doesn’t see him stumble.

There’s something familiar about it—about the look of her, about Hughes’ story of a cadet on the front lines, about a girl who can shoot like no one else—and when he gets to camp and sees her curled into herself, head bowed and eyes glossed-over once again, there’s no denying it.

That’s blonde hair, that’s brown eyes, _that’s_ _her—_

Riza, sweet little Riza, who he’d grown up with, who was so bright and brilliant, who he used to play chess with and laugh with and swap stories with.

Riza, who he’d _left,_ who he’d _abandoned,_ who he realizes, with a sinking, twisting, plunging sense of dread, must have _followed him out here_ to the desert and the blood and the death.

Riza, who rises to her feet and stands before him and doesn’t let a single tear escape from those killer’s eyes (even though he can see them glistening when she looks up at him, her gun slung over her shoulder and her hood falling back).

 _Do you remember me,_ she asks.

And all he can think is, _I wish I didn’t._

It’s only been a year or two, and it seems silly to ask if he remembers her.

But after a year of academy training, she became Amestris’ finest sniper, a shiny new cadet, and a whole twenty percent heavier because of sheer muscle gain. After a year of Ishval she’d lost that weight from stress and malnourishment and the fact that she’s still hearing children scream when she sleeps.

So, sure, it’s only been a year or two, but _do you remember me_ is what she asks, because she fully believes he won’t.

She hasn’t seen a mirror in months and she’s glad for it, _desperately_ glad for it, because she’s not sure she could bear to look at her own reflection and reconcile her old self with the new. She’s sure it’s going through his head, too—that she’s different, now, completely different. A ghost-like, stripped-down-to-the-seething-core version of the girl who used to be Riza Hawkeye.

Roy _does_ recognize her, though. That’s apparent from the way he stares at her like a ghost—like something worse than a ghost—and the way his gaze is averted, after a too long moment, like he can’t quite stand to look at her.

She returns the gesture. She thinks, probably, it’s better that way.

They walk back to camp. Hughes fills the air between them with small talk until his mouth runs dry. They find a place to sit and they _sit,_ all quiet and hunched and still until Riza thinks she might break apart if she doesn’t say _something._

_Why are soldiers killing citizens when they should be protecting them?_

Riza’s not asking, not really, because they all know there’s no answer, but Roy feels like he’s relearning that fact all over again. A part of him (despite the other parts that are sick and heaving and wishing she were anywhere but here) is relieved she’s asked. It means, somewhere, there’s an eleven-year-old girl who doesn’t want this. Somewhere, there’s a fourteen-year-old boy who _doesn’t want this_.

It’s a weak positive, sure, but it’s a spark of light in a sea of smoke, and Roy starts to cling to it.

But then, of course, it’s all simply _snuffed, killed,_ the moment Kimbley starts talking.

The man turns to Riza, not grinning _,_ not smirking _,_ but simply smiling, and he tells her the _truth_.

_Tell me, Miss—isn’t there the slightest moment where you think, ‘I got em! Great!’_

_Take pride in your own skills?_

_Feel a sense of accomplishment?_

She’s shaking. Kimbley’s not.

_Miss Sniper?_

Roy grabs him by the collar. He keeps talking, and Roy starts to shake too, because he’s _right he’s right he’s right—_

Riza and him—they sit together, when Hughes and Kimbley are gone.

They don’t talk. There’s nothing to say.

So they sit. And they bury their faces in their hands, and they think.

Four hours later, they’re still at it.

Riza all of a sudden feels suffocated by it all. She wants to scream, wants to stand up and run away, wants to use her gun for something new.

But Roy’s sitting beside her, and he’s still so quiet, and she remembers all the times he’s protected her from her father, from the aftermath of it, and she remembers all the times he’s told her everything’s going to be alright. And even now, when Kimbley started talking, when he picked her out, Roy jumped to her aid as if he wasn’t half-falling apart himself.

Riza Hawkeye is not Roy Mustang. She’ll _never_ be him. But she thinks she can do this, she thinks she can at least do this, she can settle a hand on his shoulder and see the way he looks up at her with glassy eyes and tell him—

_Thank you._

It’s quiet. Roy barely hears it. But he looks up at her and she almost _smiles_ and suddenly Roy knows what Hughes meant when he said that stuff about _fighting for simple reasons_ and _having hope to live another day._

It’s temporary, Roy knows. Maybe this hope will only last a single day. But he thinks, maybe, he can go on living if it means protecting _her_.

_I can live one more day if I can just protect her._

At the end of it all, he finds he’s still holding onto that same hope. It morphs, though—he’ll die, he’ll _live_ if it means protecting her, but he comes to realize he’ll do the same to protect Hughes, to protect all these people who never wanted any part of this in the first place, to protect the _world_ —he can keep on living, he _will_ keep on living, even if he has to _march through hell._ He’ll _do it,_ if it means protecting this country from pain like this.

And then, of course, Roy finds her burying a child.

It’s quiet. People are packing up, heading home, emptying their bags of sand and stuffing away the uniforms they’d never had a chance to wash—but somehow he and Riza managed to get landed with tickets on the last train to Central, so they’re still here, their bags still filled with sand, their extra uniforms still sitting, waiting, on the floor of their barracks.

He’s looking for her—he’s always looking for her, nowadays—and he finds her with dirt under her nails and blood staining her palms and a nameless grave marker almost brushing her forehead as she crouches over it.

She asks him, quietly, patiently, without a glance backwards, to burn away her burden.

His mouth goes dry. He can’t speak fast enough, he can’t get the words out _fast enough_ , but he starts to tell her that it’s his burden, not hers, it’s a burden he’s heaped upon her shoulders, that her father forged into her skin.

She turns. She stares straight at him. She asks him again.

She looks so tired.

He makes a promise.

Riza knows she’s forcing his hand.

He won’t say no to her—or maybe it’s just that she won’t take no for an answer. She’s never meant to be stubborn, but she knows she is, and she knows that Roy pays the price for it when she forces him to hold flame to her skin, to let it burn until it mars and melts.

But it’s the only way. They can’t let another living being see this, not after everything that’s happened. They _can’t_ let this happen again.

There’s some clarity in that. They _can’t._ They _must._ _It’s the only way this world can move forward._

It doesn’t stop her from screaming into her flimsy camp cot as Roy finally destroys her red-inked skin.

He tends her wounds before anyone can see. They call it an accident when people notice her raspy breathing, her hunched posture.

In private, Riza still calls it a blessing.

Roy goes out and digs a few more graves.

They catch the last train home.


	3. Follow Me

They have the car to themselves.

Riza sleeps, mostly, blonde hair and sun-chapped skin catching sunlight through the open window as she leans against the side of the car. Her rifle sits on the shelf above her, distanced and separate, wrapped up in sand-colored cloth.

She hasn’t said she wants to resign, but she doesn’t have to—it’s spelled out in the gun on the shelf, the scars on her back. She wants to leave it behind, and Roy can’t blame her for it.

He hasn’t told her about the plan yet—he hasn’t even told Hughes, yet, not the _whole_ of it, because they’re still surrounded by blue coats and gold stars and he’s pretty sure overthrowing the Amestrian government counts as treason, no matter how legal it might technically be, so it’s best he keeps quiet for now—but he wonders how long he can put off asking her.

He needs people he can trust to make this work. He needs people he can trust in the _military_ for this to work. He needs her, in the military, for this to work.

He watches her sleep and wonders why the cost of saving the world has to be so steep.

He’s been quiet.

Riza thinks she’s pushed him too far—she sees the glazed look in his eyes, sometimes, when he glances at her, and she knows he’s thinking about what she made him do—but he still shares a train car with her, still talks with her in a quiet voice, still stands by her and offers to carry her luggage off the train. She’s not sure what that means, not really, and she’s too tired to think much about it.

When the train arrives in Central, she follows him off, follows him to the military offices, turns in her gun and receives the order to take a month of leave, just like every other soldier.

She wonders if she’ll ever see this place again. She’s not sure _what_ she wants to do, but she knows she doesn’t want to come back. She’s gotten rid of the tattoo, and she’s gotten rid of her gun, now, and now the only thing left is to try and get rid of the blood on her hands (although she knows, _she knows_ there’s no way to wash away a sea that vast—but there’s some desperation clawing at her throat, telling her _you’re right, there’s no way to wash it, and there’s no way to wash you, and if you can’t get rid of the blood you’ll have to get rid of—_ _)._

She’s staring out into space, dwelling on that thought, when Roy asks her where she’ll go. She turns to him, starts to say _the manor,_ but she gets halfway through the word and it gets stuck in her throat. She looks down, instead, and tells him she’ll figure it out.

He looks at her, gaze soft, as if he’s heard all the things she hasn’t said.

 _You could stay with me,_ he tells her. _I got a renthouse set up ahead of time. You could take the bed, I could take the couch—_

She’s not sure it’s a good idea, and her stomach turns at the thought of staying with him after everything that’s happened, but she really doesn’t know what else to do—so she finds herself nodding, agreeing to it, following him out of the train station and down a few roads until they drop their luggage in a nearly empty living room (completely empty, save the couch that Roy had mentioned).

She manages a smile and compliments his taste in furniture. He manages a laugh and tells her his style is simply that of a cheapskate.

They fall quiet as their exhaustion finds its way back onto their shoulders.

She takes the bed, and he takes the couch.

They sleep for a day or two.

Riza doesn’t say much, and neither does Roy, and even in a few hundred square feet they only seem to cross paths a few times each day.

They don’t ask each other what they’re thinking, or what they’re not saying, but they find it isn’t hard to guess. They’re old friends, and their minds work the same, and, well, they’ve just spent a few years killing children and perpetuating genocide, so, no. It’s not hard to guess what the other is thinking.

Hughes comes by, a few days in, with his new fiancé and what must be a thirty-pound bag of home-cooked food. He doesn’t seem surprised to see Riza there, for some reason, and he doesn’t say a word about the fact that Roy and Riza are both still wearing sand-crusted uniforms, but he _does_ say that Roy needs a shave and that Riza looks tired (as if it isn’t, somehow, the biggest understatement he’s ever made in his life).

Gracia smiles as she hands them a wedding invitation over dinner.

 _You could come together,_ Hughes suggests, grinning easily.

They glance at each other for an entire half-second before they look back at their food.

It’s two days later, and they’re sitting on the couch, opposite ends, mugs of stale water folded between their hands.

It’s become a ritual. Somewhere around noon, they both find themselves awake, and they both wind up in the kitchen. A half-hour later, after a lot of shuffling and not much eating, they’re both sitting on the couch with some water to take slow sips at.

Roy asks her, one day, how she’s doing. She says she’s fine, of course, because she’s Riza, and then she asks him the same.

He doesn’t _quite_ answer, but he does suggest they go out for a walk, and Riza gives him the most incredulous look he’s ever seen. He shrugs, even if part of him agrees with her—getting dressed, leaving the house, facing the sunshine… all of it seems like _too much_ after a few days of shutting himself in. But Riza looks gaunt, and he’s starting to ache, so it’s probably for the best.

Riza agrees. They get dressed in bright new clothes, they take turns in the bathroom scrubbing away sand and dirt and a week’s worth of grime, and they stand by the door for half a minute trying to decide who’s going to touch the doorknob first.

It’s Roy, in the end. He takes it, turns it, and they step out the front door. He offers Riza his arm, and they walk down the street, trying not to squint at the white-hot summer sun.

_What do you think of the neighborhood, Sergeant?_

_It’s nice, sir._

They turn a corner and come across a cat lounging on someone’s patio, and he’s only half-surprised when Riza slips her arm from his and crouches down to scratch its head.

_You’re a cat person?_

_Just an animal person,_ she offers, giving the cat a final scritch under the chin. _I think I prefer dogs, actually._

 _Oh, good,_ he says, and he’s only half-feigning the relief. _I couldn’t possibly live my life with a cat person._

He doesn’t really put together how strange his own words are until he catches Riza’s eye. _Live my life with…_ He didn’t mean it that way, exactly, but then, it also wasn’t a mistake.

She only tilts her head. _I assume you also prefer dogs, then._

_Definitely. Loyal, energetic, straightforward—they’re kinda like Hughes, now that I think about it._

She smiles, and it feels like a victory. _I’ll make sure to tell him you said so._

It’s two weeks into their leave, and they’re sitting on the couch again ( _well, Riza’s on the couch, he’s sprawled up against it, the wooden corner digging into his shoulder),_ when, suddenly, she laughs.

Roy asks her what the joke is, and she says something in her soft voice that he doesn’t quite hear. When he asks her again, and she says it again, he can’t help but smile too.

_I was just thinking about what my father might say, if he saw all this. Can you imagine the fit he’d have?_

It’s not funny, not really—not with the tattoo on her back and the bloodstains that won’t ever come out of Master Hawkeye’s floor—but Roy remembers the way Master Hawkeye would stare down his nose when he was angry, and the way he’d huff, and the way he’d pale and say _didn’t I tell you not to do that,_ and Roy has to admit that he’s able to find a little bit of humor in the man’s dramatics.

 _He’d be red in the face,_ Riza says, and she sits up, a grin creeping over her face. _He’d be furious._

 _He’d shake his finger at us, too, like little kids,_ Roy adds, and he’s not sure _what’s_ so funny, be he’s starting to laugh too.

_He’d forbid us from having dinner, but then he’d go back up to his room and forget all about it._

_He’d act all insulted for the next few months, with that scrunched-up expression he always has._

_He’d—he’d—_ Riza starts to wheeze, and he can see tears forming in the corner of her eyes— _he’d throw a tantrum and talk about the Hawkeye line, and my great-grandfather, and his Hawkeye pride—_

Neither can say any more—they’re bowled over, shaking with laughter.

Roy starts to wonder whether this is just a way their minds have tricked them into finally crying, because tears are streaming from Riza’s eyes and pouring from his, and five minutes later neither of them have stopped.

To both of their surprise, with just a few tears, they’ve broken down a dam.

Riza finds Roy weeping in the kitchen—he tells her about burning Ishvalan churches and burning Ishvalan schools and screams that belong to faces he’ll never see. Roy finds Riza with her hands threaded through her hair, her eyes wide and her jaw clenched—she tells him about families she only knew through the lens of a rifle scope and all the people who were too young, too old, too alive to die.

They tell each other that there’s no coming back from something like this, and then they tell each other that that can’t be true, that there’s got to be something, _something_ they can do.

Roy, somewhere in the middle of it all, tells her the plan.

_You’ll follow me,_ he asks, and he’s half hoping she won’t.

He tells her, of course he tells her, about the plan to end the military dictatorship. He tells her about the plan to put Parliament in power, and he tells her about the plan to put himself and her and everyone else on trial as war criminals. He tells her about the plan to make Amestris a democracy, no matter what the toll. He tells her they could both be killed for this, whether they fail or succeed.

And, in the end, he tells her he could use a soldier like her. He tells her he could use protection like hers. He tells her that this isn’t redemption, but this is _right,_ and that he thinks that making the world a better place for those who will come after them is best they can do. No, it’s all they can do.

He adds on, like the passing thought it isn’t, that _we’ll have to keep our personal interactions to a minimum, if you take me up on this. You’ll have to find somewhere else to live, and we’ll have to stop talking like this._

And it’s all true, every word, but there’s the rest of it, things he can’t find it in him to say— _I’m not sure I want that. I’m not sure I want to let this go. I’m not sure I can stand you sacrificing any more than you already have._ And it’s a new thought, a revelation, when he realizes _I think I might care about you, Riza Hawkeye, more than I care about what’s right._

But he swallows that down, he locks those thoughts away, because what is right will always be more important than his own feelings _(no matter how much it hurts, no matter how much he thinks about the fact that this is exactly the opposite of protecting the people who need protecting)._

She seems to understand.

 _Will you be alright without me,_ she asks, even though they both know she’ll always be by his side.

 _No,_ he says, and he smiles, _but we’ll make it work._

She knows what he’s getting at when he starts talking about fraternization policies and military codes of conduct, and she wonders if anyone’s ever been confessed to like that before.

She’s surprised, in a way— _you care for me, after everything that’s happened?—_ but a different part of her thinks she’s known it for a while. When he paid for her father’s funeral. When he covered her tattoo, held her tight. When he didn’t leave the manor until she begged him to. When he stood up to Kimbley, when he promised to burn her back, when he let her stay at his house, and when they cried together for more than a week straight.

The end of their leave arrives. She moves in with Rebecca, at least until she can find her own place, and she sees the way Roy’s expression grows tight with _grief_ when she tells him she’s thankful for his hospitality.

She goes to Central. She finds his office. She knocks on his door.

She’s glad she knows he loves her, and she’s so, so glad she loves him. But they both know there are things more important than two people loving each other.

 _Of course, sir,_ she says, and neither of them flinch. _I’ll follow you into hell if you ask me to._


	4. Eastern Command

They’re together, albeit in a different way than before. They’re _the Colonel and his Lieutenant,_ two sides of a single coin, and they both take comfort in that.

They’re reassigned out East. Hughes comes along, too, and together they plan the fall of Amestris as they know it. More often than not, they feel like the punchline to a particularly depressing military joke—a trio of military officers walk into a bar, pretend to get wasted, and talk in code about overthrowing the Fuhrer. They all get promoted. What was rewarded, the treason or the alcohol?

It’s ridiculous, laughably so, but then, they’ve long since left reason behind.

Roy realizes, eventually, he enjoys his life in between the sleepless nights.

It starts when Riza meets a grandfather she never knew she had. Grumman looks at her like he’s seen a ghost, and he pulls the Lieutenant into his office, and when she comes out an hour later she relays the whole thing to Roy with quiet words and a shaky smile.

_My parents kept him away, but he’s been looking out for me—he came to the manor after he heard about my father—he thought I must have died with him, some contagious illness—I didn’t tell anyone I was leaving, and they must have thought—and, sir, he says I look like my mother—_

Roy’s happy for her. It’s the best thing that’s happened to her in a while, and she deserves it.

And, well, the truth is it’s the best thing that’s happened to _him_ in a while, too, because Roy’s not too proud to take advantage of the situation and connect with a higher-up (something that’s been hard, in the East, and even harder when Roy’s a 25-year-old upstart with a reputation). Pretty soon, he and Grumman are playing chess every week.

The old man’s clever, _no one_ makes General without being clever, but Roy learns all too quickly Grumman’s taken on the façade of an idiot. He churns out a lot of nonsense, but his favorite is: _Won’t you marry my granddaughter? I’d like her to be the future Fuhrer’s wife._

It comes up at _least_ every other hour, and Roy learns to brush it off. Brush it off, brush it off, brush it off, _laugh_ it off—until it occurs to him to wonder where on earth Grumman got the idea that he and Riza were like that anyway. Are they really so obvious? Or… the old man’s not asking _other_ men to marry Riza, is he?

He asks her about it, one night after a long shift of paperwork.

It’s been a long time since she’s seen her flush, but oh, she _flushes_ when he asks her.

 _He went to the old manor, sir, when he heard about my father’s death,_ she reminds him. _I wasn’t there, of course, so he went inside and found an old journal of mine. He read it, thinking that I must have died alongside my father, and as such that it wouldn’t be a breach in privacy. I may have written something that made him think—_

Roy’s holding back laughter, and she’s beet red.

_I may have written about how I thought you were—but I was just a child—Colonel, I’d like to remind you that I’m holding a gun and have your explicit permission to shoot you at will—_

He doesn’t _promise_ Grumman anything, and he never will. But the next time the old man suggests that his granddaughter could use a good husband like him, Roy can only smile and insist it’s the other way around.

He’s an idiot, she learns for the first time.

Her childhood crush had blinded her, at first, and then the war had been a blur altogether. But now that they’re out of Ishval, now that they can act like human beings again, now that they have fresh coffee and padded chairs and air that doesn’t smell like smoke, they end up talking about things other than death and she realizes that she’s never met someone so stupid.

He calls her _Elizabeth_ over their personal line. The playboy persona is a cover, she knows, so she goes along with it, but then he starts talking about the old river out by the manor and how they should go visit, sometime, how he’d love to go swimming with her again, or take a long walk through the forest—

And she’s tempted to scold him for injecting true-to-life personal details into their coded conversations, but she can almost _hear_ the stupid grin on his face. He’s having the time of his life. So, she rolls her eyes, continues the mission and plays along as his Elizabeth, and isn’t the least bit surprised when she comes back to find him utterly unapologetic.

She expects him to clean up his act when they recruit Breda, Havoc, Falman, Fuery—one by one, their ragtag team— _especially_ since Fuery started using his own equipment to monitor the lines. The poor boy can hear, every time, the way Roy’s voice stops dripping sweet nothings and starts spinning a genuine strain of tender-soft promises. It’s embarrassing, and _completely_ unprofessional, and so _stupid_ of him—

And she loves it, despite herself.

She loves the way he says _you’re my one and only, Lizzie,_ and she loves it when he asks her what kind of wedding ring he should get her, and she loves it when he insists that they should have three children, two dogs, and a townhouse right next to that little bakery he takes her to sometimes, because _I know it’s crazy, Elizabeth, but I really think I want to spend my life with you_.

She loves it when she gets to say, _you know, Roy, I think I’ll take you up on that._

She loves coming back to the office, walking past a distinctly bewildered-looking Fuery, and finding Roy sitting up straight in his seat, working _furiously_ on paperwork she’s been trying to get him to do for _months,_ refusing to so much as meet her eyes, as if _he’s_ not the one who brought it all up.

She sighs, brings another stack of work to his desk, lets her hand linger just a little longer than strictly necessary on his desk.

He looks up at her, rubs at his neck, looks away again. There’s a smile creeping onto his face, tugging at the corners of his mouth, and Riza thinks it’s the best thing she’s ever seen.

In the end, that’s what convinces her that he’s not the _only_ idiot around here.

They go to Resembool together. They find two boys there—the Elric brothers—and Roy talks to Ed and Riza talks to Winry, and both of them have a feeling this won’t be the last time they see those kids, not by a long shot.

Riza grows out her hair. Roy tells her it looks nice.

They get transferred to Central.

Roy introduces her to Madame Christmas, tells his aunt that _this is Elizabeth, the girl I’ve been telling you about,_ and Christmas _hmms_ approvingly and invites her to come to the bar for a free drink sometime. Roy assures Riza that that’s the highest praise he knows his aunt to be capable of, and Riza says she returns the sentiment.

A year later, Ed and All are in Central, living, studying, and becoming embroiled in state politics and grisly murders before Ed’s old enough to so much as look at a razor.

Roy doesn’t have time to help them the way he wishes he could—not really, not when Hughes has been hinting about a possible opening for promotion to brigadier general and what that means—but whenever he sees the boys, he makes sure to remind them of what they’re here for: the Philosopher’s Stone, and their bodies. If they can keep their eyes on that, if they can just keep moving towards that, he knows they’ll be alright.

He wishes he could do more. But he has a country to watch out for, now, and those boys are small parts of a greater whole.

He’ll have to settle for helping them to help themselves.

Riza thinks the boys remind her of Roy.

Ed, especially, has a sort of determination she’s only ever seen in the Colonel’s eyes—and she likes to believe that if anyone will find a Philosopher’s Stone, it’ll be him. It’s not hard to believe, when she sees him transmuting without a circle, or scribbling down alchemic equations in a travelogue, or when she realizes that binding a soul to a suit of armor is a plan he was able to make in mere _minutes_ , despite the fact that his own pain must have been blinding.

But Alphonse, too, reminds her of Roy when he was younger, in her hometown, learning alchemy. He’s sweet, he’s selfless, and he’s determined, too, even if he’s quieter about it.

She looks out for them. Protects them, as best she can, the same way she protects the Colonel. And, of course, she helps them out every once in a while when they want to pull a prank on their superior officer.

It’s the small things, she thinks, as she watches Roy limp into the office, dripping wet and scowling.

It’s been going well, all things considered, and maybe that’s why the call feels so unexpected.

A nameless civilian finds Hughes in a phonebooth.


	5. It's Not Alright

The civilian who finds Hughes calls the MPs. The MPs call Fuery, to see if he can trace the last call Hughes made. He can’t, and he calls Breda to tell him so, and then Breda calls Roy, and at 3 AM Roy’s realizing that he _knows_ who Hughes was trying to call.

He’s thinking about that, and other things, of course— _he had a wife. He had a daughter. It should have been me—_ and all the while, he’s pulling on his coat so he can go see his friend’s corpse (at least he’s trying to, he’s _trying_ to get this flimsy piece of fabric over his arms, but his hands won’t stop shaking).

He almost doesn’t hear when someone knocks at his door (but he _does,_ and he knows who it is, and he knows she has a key).

He curses, he tries to pull his coat on, but his hands are still _shaking_ when she walks in, crosses the space between them, and pulls him in, face buried in his shoulder.

 _You did your best,_ she tells him, and she sounds almost as desperate as he feels, even with her voice muffled by the loose fold of his coat. _You did your best, Colonel, this isn’t your fault._

 _It’s not alright,_ he whispers, _don’t patronize me,_ and he means it, means every spitting word. _This is my fault, you know it is. Hughes is dead, Hawkeye, and it’s my fault. I couldn’t even protect my own best friend._

 _You did your best,_ she says again, and she holds him tighter.

Roy laughs, something bitter and hurting and desperate, and he hopes she can’t feel the way his tears are starting to seep into her hair.

_I know. But you get it, don’t you? That just means my best isn’t enough._

She can’t convince him. She knows she can’t. She’s slowly learned that the Colonel has built up his worth around one thing—protecting those he loves—and suffering a loss like this isn’t something she can make better with a hug and a few comforting words.

That doesn’t stop her from trying. She holds him, and she helps him get dressed, and she drives him to the coroner’s office, all the while trying to say _it’s alright, this isn’t your fault, please, Colonel, you’re going to be alright_ in as many different ways as she can.

She doesn’t know what to do. A part of her feels like they’re both back in Ishval—even though she knows, logically, that they’re both sitting in a military hallway, waiting for the autopsy results to come back—because their heads are both bowed and Roy’s shaking from hurt and anger and who knows what else. She wishes she could thank him, like she did then ( _because he still deserves it, even now, and he always will)_ but she knows that it would only feel like a slap to the face given what’s just happened.

She settles a hand on his shoulder, says nothing, because there _are_ no words for this.

It’s a long night for the both of them.

There’s a funeral, and he cries. _Rain makes you useless,_ she’d always said to tease, but now _he_ plays off the words and she feels like flinching.

For Roy, he knows, he _knows_ he has to move forward despite this. He doesn’t have the luxury of turning back now. He knows he _will_ move forward, whatever the cost, but—

—but for today, he lets himself weep.

There’s a host of distractions, which they both find themselves grateful for, even though each one brings its own challenges. Scar, the Fifth Laboratory, Barry the Chopper, Maria Ross.

They work through it together. Roy interrogates everyone he meets about Hughes, and Riza backs him up, covers his back, like she always does.

Roy’s grateful for her.

He’s angry, and he’s hopeless, but she’s on his left side and she’s _there_ and _alive_ and _her,_ and somehow, slowly, he remembers that’s all he needs.

 _I can live until tomorrow,_ he thinks, again and again, _if it means another day of keeping her safe._

Roy presses forward with even more conviction than before, and Riza comes to believe that it really will be alright.

She thinks, after a few weeks have gone by and the danger seems to fade, that she should have known better, should have known that he’d persevere. She _knows,_ after all, without a doubt—Roy is unbreakable, unkillable, unstoppable, and no matter what he’ll forge his way onwards and continue out on the path they’ve set.

She finds strength in his. If Roy never falters, neither will she. She’s doesn’t know when she began thinking about her and Roy as two parts of a unified whole, but now it’s a fact, a reality of the universe.

She doesn’t think it’s possible, really, to separate them.

_I have a way to find Hughes’s killer,_ Roy says. _Will you help me?_

They both know he doesn’t need an answer.

He’s on the phone with her—they’re talking about a fishing trip, and a store Elizabeth works at, and he hears a gunshot or two but she’s still talking to him, so he thinks things are probably going alright.

He’s just about to say something that he knows will make her blush, but then— _hold on, Roy, I have a customer of my own._

He waits a second, and another, and he hears her fire an entire round. And then another.

His mouth goes dry.

_I can live another day if—_

_If I can just—_

He slams the phone down and _runs._

He’s an idiot, he’s an idiot, he’s an _idiot—_

She wonders if she’s just saying that because her heartbeat is roaring in her ears, or if she really means it. Another part of her wonders if she’s still stuck in Elizabeth-mode, if maybe calling him an idiot helps her get the last of witty, sarcastic Elizabeth out of her adrenaline-rushed system.

Either way, she follows him out of that tower, and she considers that _yes, Roy just saved my life,_ and she starts to feel a little numb because _she could have died and who’d be there to protect the Colonel then?_

She tells him thank you. He barely seems to register the words.

She makes a note to tell him again later.

They follow Barry into the Third Laboratory. They go down to the basement. Roy says they should split up, and he sends Riza with Alphonse (they won’t say it’s to keep the kid safe, but then, it’s not exactly an accident that Roy pairs his bodyguard with the child in the group).

Riza turns to him, stares at him, before they separate. She gives him a look that she hopes says, _be careful,_ and not the much more accurate, _please don’t die._

He smiles back, something he hopes is reassuring and doesn’t betray how naked he feels without her at his back. _You too, Lieutenant. Stay safe._

Later—when he’s on the ground and he’s lying in a pool of his own blood and he’s croaking out _Havoc, you can’t die now, not before me—_ he thinks of her.

He wonders what she’ll do once he’s gone. He wonders whether she’ll be alright. He considers what he might do in her place.

His eyes widen. Even with a mind addled by pain and blood loss, the answer to that is all too clear.

He sears the wound closed. He stumbles to his feet. He lurches to the hall and follows the sound of gunshots and begs his body to move _faster, faster, please, I have to get to her—_

There aren’t any words for what Riza feels.

She’s broken _,_ but that doesn’t quite capture the way her soul’s been sawn in half, ripped apart, a part of it lost forever when this homunculus, the woman called _Lust,_ tells her that Roy’s dead.

 _Roy’s dead_ , she thinks, and she tears her gun from the holster, aiming it at Lust’s heart, _firing_ in pure, venomous spite of the futility.

 _Roy’s dead_ , she thinks, and she falters, her gun clicking as she tries to fire an empty barrel.

 _Roy’s dead_ , and her arms drop to her sides. _Roy’s dead_ , and she can’t help her vision blurring with hot tears. _Roy’s dead_ , and she’s falling to her knees, sobbing like a child while Roy’s murderer steps ever closer.

 _Roy’s dead,_ she thinks, _and so am I._

_I’m sick of watching people die!_ Alphonse’s still standing, he’s shielding her with his body, and he’s shouting down a homunculus with a voice loud enough to boom in a room this empty. _I won’t let anyone die, not while I can protect them!_

_Well said._

He’s staggering, barely standing, but he sees Riza on the ground, still alive, _still alive,_ and he feels like he could do the impossible to keep it that way _._

And he does. He kills an immortal, one fiery blast at a time.

Riza’s not thinking straight, she knows she’s not, and she wonders what she’s thinking as she tries struggle out of Alphonse’s grip. She can’t help, she can’t survive the Colonel’s flames, even her gun is empty—

But the moment Alphonse lets go, she still tears from his arms, not fast enough to catch the Colonel but she can still fall to her knees and gets as close to him as she dares.

He looks like he might die, but he’s not dead yet, and he _smiles_ at her.

_Are you alright, Lieutenant?_

She would laugh, but her soul’s still trying to figure out if it’s supposed to be in pieces or not.

 _Don’t worry about me, you idiot,_ she says, and she’s still crying. She’s not sure she could stop if she wanted. _You need help!_

 _Help for Havoc,_ he says, and Riza thinks a slap wouldn’t be amiss. _Of course._

They make it to a hospital. Roy recovers. Riza’s not sure she ever leaves his side.

Madame Christmas comes by, and she brings home-cooked food and questions. The rest of Mustang’s men stop by, too, bringing a cheap ‘get well card’—courtesy of Breda—and a vase of flowers—Fuery and Falman’s doing.

They can’t say everything they want to say, not when Havoc’s in the next bed over and already asking why Riza doesn’t just go home and sleep on something other than a flimsy hospital couch, but Riza helps Roy to the bathroom one night, and while she’s half-carrying him across the room and his arm is slung around her shoulders, she whispers something like _I’m sorry I wasn’t there._

He leans into her, closes his eyes.

 _I should have saved you,_ she says, and suddenly they’re not moving, they’re just standing in the middle of the room, her grip on him growing tighter. _I should have been there, I should have protected you, I could have lost you—_

 _You’re the reason I got up,_ Roy tells her. _You’re the reason I’m alive. You did just fine, Lieutenant. You always do, and you’re always there when I need you the most._

She hesitates, and her voice is tight when she speaks again.

 _I understand._ He can’t make out her face in the dark, but he doesn’t need to see to know that she’s shaking under his touch. _Thank you, sir. Thank you._


	6. A Country to Save

He scolds her, of course, after a few more days in the hospital— _you can’t give up, not when we have a mission so important. You didn’t even really know I was dead, and if I had been just a second later, you’d have died for nothing—_ and Riza grits her teeth and nods. She deserves the rebuke, and she knows it.

She’s forgotten, recently, that no matter how much she loves Roy, no matter how much he loves her, there’s something more important than either of them. There’s a country to save, and corruption to root out, and a mission to accomplish.

She thinks he’s forgotten, too. Between Hughes and her and everything else he’s had to worry about, it’s been easy to be shortsighted.

She hates to bring him his uniform—he’s still so weak, and his eyes go glassy with pain anytime he walks down a hallway—but this is one thing she allows herself to bite down her stubbornness for.

She gets his uniform, he wears it, and they get back to business.

Things begin to avalanche. Ed and Al decide to lure out the homunculi using _Scar,_ of all things, and a prince from Xing shows up at some point, and there’s a panda and a coal miner and the _Fuhrer._ It sounds like a comedy, except for the fact that the situation isn’t funny at all and is, in fact, threatening countless lives.

Roy and Riza both start to wonder what’s more ambitious: trying to take over Amestris or keeping track of all the chaos.

Roy sends Riza to help the boys, and she tells him to keep his head down. They both do as they’re told, for once, and at the end of the day they’re at that abandoned house with Dr. Knox and a homunculus tied up in a ball.

That prince, Ling, tells Roy the Fuhrer is a homunculus.

He doesn’t have time to process that, not until he’s in the shotgun of a car and sweating bullets and facing the fact that he just left _children_ to fight against one of the monsters that gave him the wounds that pain him even now.

But the Fuhrer. The _Fuhrer._ The implications of his newfound identity _do_ come, eventually—in between sharp breaths and jolts of pain.

_The Fuhrer signed the Ishvalan Extermination Order. King Bradley denied their surrender and slaughtered an innocent people. The homunculi are responsible for—no, I’m still culpable, but—_

_Colonel?_ Riza’s in the backseat, and there’s an injured girl in her lap, moaning and crying, and Knox is still muttering and the engine’s sputtering, but he can hear her as well as he can hear himself. _Colonel, are you alright?_

 _I think we fought a war for the homunculi,_ he says, and it comes out half-strangled.

Riza always knew the war was senseless, but this feels like a blow anyways.

They’re in Knox’s living room, and the lights are off, and Roy’s sitting on the couch while she rebandages his wounds (Knox said he’d be right back, but Lan Fan needs his attention more than they do, and Riza’s wrapped a few wounds before, back in Ishval, so she assures him she’ll take care of it).

They’d always known they were following questionable orders. It didn’t matter whether it was the Amestrian government or the homunculi who gave them. They had still carried out atrocities, either way, in the name of _obedience._

But there’s a difference, Riza thinks. A difference between following a government that’s founded on good intentions, if flawed, and following a literal monster just because he happened to be wearing a few more stars than they were. There’s a difference, when you learn that your obedience was every bit as _hopelessly foolish_ as you’d thought.

 _But our mission hasn’t changed,_ she tells Roy, as if she’s already voiced all of her thoughts.

 _No,_ Roy agrees, as if he’s already heard them. _But it’s sure gotten a lot more complicated, huh, Lieutenant?_

She nods, hums, and unspools some more gauze.

Roy argues with Knox. He tells him the stakes— _the Fuhrer’s a homunculi and children are fighting our wars and I’m not about to let that continue._ The doctor lets them go with a minimum amount of complaint.

Roy insists on driving— _I want to get there as fast as possible—_ to which Riza argues— _I want to make it there alive._ Roy wins, if only because he was the only one who had the chance to sleep for a few minutes before they left Knox’s place, and Riza looks liable to doze off at any moment.

She sits in the shotgun, and he tells her to sleep, but a few minutes later he hears her _giggling._

_What’s so funny?_

_It’s nothing,_ she says. _I just thought—if Edward had heard you, back there, treating him like a child…_

 _I was only repeating what you said,_ he protests, but she’s still smiling, and Roy thinks she must be more tired than she looks.

She’s quiet for another moment. Then—

_This is pretty bold action for you, Colonel._

She’s right. They’ve kept him in the shadows since the beginning—with promotions like his, he already has a target painted on his back, and they’ve always taken pains to avoid shining a light on it.

But he says, _bold? No, I’m only getting the ball rolling._

He can almost _hear_ her rolling her eyes, and he huffs.

 _And besides._ He stares at the road, stretching in front of them, illuminated by lamplight. _Hughes always did encourage making new friends._

She helps him change into his uniform, and helps him out of the car, and part of her is worried if she doesn’t help him walk up the front stairs he’ll fall flat on his face. The wound is worse than he lets on, and she knows it.

And that’s not the only thing she’s worried about—he brought up Hughes on the way here, and the way he’s been talking about children on a battlefield tells Riza he’s not _just_ thinking about Ed and Al, and he’s just learned that Bradley’s probably a homunculus and that the war really was senseless.

To top it all off, he’s looking at those stairs to Central without a trace of fear in his eyes. She’s known some soldiers like that—the ones who aren’t afraid. She’s afraid what will happen now that that blind courage, that sheer recklessness, is mingling with Roy’s unstoppable determination.

But still, he tells her to stay, and she knows he’s right, despite it all.

There’s too much risk of them being separated—he’s going into a high-ranking meeting and she’d be forced to wait elsewhere—and she knows escape will be harder for the Colonel if he’s worrying about her making it out alive, too.

So she agrees to it. She’ll stay out of the crossfire and she’ll wait for his return.

But _then_ he tells her to leave if things get dangerous, and _that’s_ what crosses the line.

It’s a short scuffle: she refuses, he glares. He calls it an order, she says she already knows that. He calls her stubborn, she says _he_ already knows that.

Finally, he says, _you’ll stay if I promise to come back?_

She nods, salutes.

He smiles, eyes crinkling, and she’s glad for it. Optimism, however misguided, seems safer than calculating single-mindedness… and, well, she’d be lying if she said she didn’t find comfort herself in his smile.

She allows herself to hope that everything will work out just fine.

He leaves, eventually. She stands, hands folded behind her back, and waits.

Roy reveals himself. His heart stops. He’s in a room of wolves, surrounded by them, each and every one of them well aware that he’s nothing but a piece of meat.

Yet, they hold. They simply stare, they simply grin.

He stares at his hands, wondering if this is how Hughes felt.

The Fuhrer invites him for tea.

Riza wonders if he’s alright. It’s been hours, and she’s still standing, still waiting, even though she knows the meeting’s been over since midnight, at the latest, and the nearby bell tower lets her know that it’s nearly three in the morning.

She looks up at Central, at its gently glowing lights, and she knows some promises are made to be broken, and she knows no one can guarantee life or death, but he _promised_ her, and if there’s one thing she’ll never doubt, it’s him.

_I know exactly who to target._

Roy freezes, clenches, and terror courses through him a way it hasn’t all night.

_She’ll work with me from now on. I’ll keep an eye on her from here._

Roy stares at the floor, his vision kaleidoscoping as he tries to just _breathe._ He tries to threaten the Fuhrer, too, with his son, because it’s the only shot he has at evening the field, but the Fuhrer only brushes him off.

He thought they’d been careful enough. He thought they’d kept—they’d kept far enough apart, hadn’t they? Wasn’t that all supposed to _mean_ something?

He’s shaking, and he knows the Fuhrer sees it, but he _can’t stop_.

Wasn’t he supposed to protect her?

It happens quickly, and Riza’s exhausted mind takes a little long to process it (she’s been up for 40 hours, now, and most of it was on her feet, standing, running, _waiting_ ).

It’s Falman, and he explains the transfers—and then it’s the Fuhrer’s personal secretary and he has an envelope for her, and—

Her first concern is that he’s been killed. Transfers aren’t strictly _normal_ for the men of those killed in action—it’s more common to simply put someone else in charge—but this is hardly a normal situation, and it’s not hard to believe Roy’s men would be split up, even after his death, to stop any of them from collaborating and carrying on his work.

But there’s no blaring alarm, there’s no alert about a dead officer, and those men said they came straight from the Fuhrer’s office—and, most importantly, there’s no body—so she stands her ground, continues waiting, and tries not to faint on her feet.

Roy invites her over.

He knows he’s breaking an unspoken rule, but at this point he’s too tired to care, and there’s also the fact that, apparently, the proverbial ship that had carried his secret pining for his adjutant had long since sailed. The Fuhrer knew. The _homunculi_ knew. It took all his willpower not to throw his hands up in the air and decide to kiss Hawkeye, just to see how they’d react to _that._

But he doesn’t. He simply lets himself drive them to his home, which is still sparsely decorated with the same couch but also a new coffee maker.

They plan. They devise codes. They don’t say goodbye.

He does say _I’ll kill them if they hurt you._

And she does get a soft look on her face. She does put a hand on his and she does squeeze it gently and she does firmly tell him to stop thinking that way.

_You’ve told me again and again that I’m not allowed to give up if you die. I’ll expect you to live by the same standard._

And she’s right, as always, but the finality of the words haunt him.


	7. Promised Day

They promise to be careful. When they’re thinking more clearly, it becomes obvious that they can’t continue to speak in private even _if_ the Fuhrer knows. There are other risks involved—the thought that the homunculi might begin spying on their private conversations, as well as the more simple fact that, on the off chance that they do successfully pull off this coup d’état and survive the next year or so, they still can’t allow rumors of a relationship to spread.

So they don’t see each other. They don’t _try_ to see each other.

It’s an interesting exercise in relearning how to live.

Roy doesn’t think much about dialing her number.

He knows she’ll kill him for it, but—he _does_ need to get rid of these flowers, and it’s a plausible cover story. And he’d like to see her. And maybe these days without seeing her face are getting to him, just a little, and he could use the break from it all.

It’s just. so strange. He’s never gone a week without seeing her since… the early days in Ishval. He’s never existed as an office-dweller without her. He’s never sat at a desk without her looking over his shoulder. He’s never gone so long without eating by her side, or without hearing her sigh at his antics, or without _her._

And he’s managed to convince himself it’s alright if they just have this one evening together. He’s managed to hope that this new phase of their plans is worth celebrating, that it’s worth talking about over a late dinner and a room full of flowers. He convinces himself that Riza will only scold him for a few minutes and then they can just—have this. This one moment, and it won’t even matter.

And then Riza—she hesitates for the briefest of seconds and the bubble of optimism _pops._

 _What’s wrong?_ he asks. He’s suddenly aware of the darkness outside the phone booth. He scans it, looking carefully for anyone who might approach.

Her hesitation is even longer, then, and he flips through scenarios just as quickly as he’d pull his thumb across a deck of cards. The thoughts are quick but distinct, ranging from _she’s just upset and alone_ to _she’s currently being held at gunpoint._

But she says it’s _nothing._

He’s familiar enough with that. He knows that’s Riza’s go-to answer for probing questions. But he’s not used to the way he has to swallow down his reply— _are you sure, Riza? How can I help?_

And worse still, he—he lets her go. He puts down the phone, and he puts his head up against the glass, and he only promises himself that this won’t happen again.

The next day, she finds him. She’s more forceful than normal—walking right up and asking him directly if she can join him. It’s not the first time they’ve done this, but—but it still feels wrong.

She steels herself and says what she has to say. He nods, and she sees him discretely tuck his notes into his breast pocket.

And then they talk. And his eyes wander to the cut under her cheek. And they talk some more, about the weather and paperwork and nothing at all, and she has to fight not to look away.

She wonders if he knows. She crosses that thought because— _of course_ he knows, but how much? He always did catch on to the smallest things. And for all of the effort she’s putting into not thinking about the whole impossible situation, she’s still trying to keep her feet out of the shadows and she’s still acting like a scared little girl.

She lays her hand on the table, right next to her tray. She looks at him and she wonders how nice it would be if he could just—if they could just touch, for just a second, just until she feels like she can breathe again.

She’s never felt like she couldn’t understand him. But when he stands and smiles and makes his excuse to leave, she watches him go and feels—she feels alone, for the first time in a long time.

The planning goes well. She talks to Roy through intermediaries, mostly—Havoc and Rebecca have never been more appreciated—and in the end they plan to meet on the Promised Day.

It’s strange, looking forward to the end of the world.

The night before the day, she packs her things.

Her apartment is still in various stages of not-really-unpacked-at-all, so she gathers a few valuables and practical things and puts them in a duffel bag. She doesn’t know under what circumstances she’ll return, so it seems prudent to have a getaway bag ready to go if the need arises.

She wonders if Roy has done the same. She wonders how it’ll feel to finally be able to ask him.

He sends one of the girls out to wait for her outside of the bar. It’s a little too difficult to think of letting her be snapped up from right underneath their noses.

And when she’s escorted in, he breathes in the first easy breath he’s had in weeks.

He gives her a quick half-hug and whispers into her hair. _It’s good to see you, Elizabeth._

 _Likewise,_ she says, and she doesn’t even pretend to be annoyed.

Events continue on quickly, and so do they. The Promised Day is nothing if not _complex,_ and it feels as if they are inside a giant machine, jumping across the moving gears and belts, trying not to be pulled under by the sheer speed and chaos of it.

Roy keeps casualties to a minimum. Riza protects him. It feels just like old times.

Then, so _suddenly,_ they stand before a person-homunculus--shapeshifter-murderer-monster.

Riza watches as the Colonel breaks. The path before her suddenly seems—blurry. Odd. Like a radio knob turned just a little to the left of the right station.

She watches him burn. She’d known he was angry, but this…

How could she not have noticed? Maria Ross should have been a clue. Before Barry had told him the truth, he’d been so cold. And he’d always been unrelenting in his search for Hughes’ murderer. She should have known this would happen. And maybe she did. Maybe she’d just wanted to trust him too much. Maybe she’d failed him for how much she’d come to believe in him.

No, no. That wasn’t right. He’d done his best, and this—her, not warning him off this path sooner—this would be her fault if it came to—

 _Stay behind,_ he tells her.

She grits her teeth and disobeys.

The first sign that he’s wrong is that Riza is lying on the floor with a gash across her shoulder and Envy hovering over her.

The second sign is that he doesn’t maneuver himself towards her side when he has the chance.

He notes those things, but also ignores them. He told himself coming in that taking down Envy was more important than either he or Riza’s lives. Envy was a _monster,_ and they would continue to kill and hurt and destroy until they themselves were destroyed in the very flames of hell.

He convinces himself that this is protecting. That this inferno raging in front of him and singing his skin is _protection,_ and it’s _right,_ and _this is what I’ve been working for, Lieutenant._

The third sign is a gun pointed at his back.

She remembers the promise she’d made to Roy. She’d said she’d stop him if he went too far. But as seriously as she had taken that promise, she hadn’t expected it to really happen, and that had been her mistake.

And now she stands with a gun in her hand and her eyes on her back and she’s forced to contemplate what she’ll do if, when, that back is dripping red.

She thinks back to Lust. How the thought of him dying had brought her physically to her knees. Right now, her muscles are iron-stiff and unyielding and the only evidence of anything other than calm is the tremor in her hands and her voice. 

_Stop it,_ she says.

She half hopes it’ll only take that. But—but he keeps talking, and his expression hasn’t untwisted itself. And it’s surreal, but she continues talking, too, until she’s saying that she intends to break another one of her promises, that she’s not going to live without him, how if he dies, she will too.

It feels selfish. Underhanded. And it’s weak, too, a truthful admission that she never meant to make—that no matter how much he scolds, no matter how much he demands otherwise, she simply won’t, simply can’t live without him.

But if this is the last thing she’ll say to him, _I can’t live without you_ is what she has to say.

He apologizes. They both fall to the floor. The relief and shame mingle until they’re one undivided emotion that they pack away as they’re forced to stand once again. Roy squeezes her hand as he helps Riza to her feet, and it’s a promise to discuss it later, to apologize more fully for what he’d driven them both to.

Riza offers him a shaky smile. It’s never been more nice to know there _is_ a later.

And then—so quickly, Roy watches as her throat—as she falls—as—

He freezes for a moment. He’s not close enough. The sudden slump of her body as she crumples to the floor is what startles him into movement, but his captors are ready by then, holding his arms in an iron-clad grip. He yanks, and he _screams,_ but there’s. there’s nothing that gives. Not the arms that hold him, not the blood that runs from Riza, nothing.

 _Useless,_ drums against his mind. _Useless._ Riza’s voice, deadpan, so close to being amused. _Useless._

She’s dying. There’s nothing that can bring back the dead. She’d just—she’d just barely finished telling him that she couldn’t live without him, and now—

Her eyes flutter open. She speaks. She looks, slowly, towards the ceiling.

Oh, Hawkeye. Oh, Riza.

He’s never held her so close before.

She’s a little tired. Everything is a little more difficult to think about through the distracting amount of pain from her throat and shoulder. For that, at least, she thinks she’s earned the way she buries her face in his shoulder.

 _Your signal,_ Roy says, voice low and trembling just a little. _Thank you._

She smiles.

And then—it’s so _unfair,_ and frankly ridiculous even for a war—he’s pulled into a transmutation circle.

Riza watches it and waits.

She thinks she should be numb to it at this point. It’s been hours since this day started, and already she’s seen Roy almost die at least twice. When she had begun killing in Ishval, the violence had steadily become _easier,_ and it feels wrong for it to do the opposite now. But with every passing moment, it gets worse.

She wonders at her relief, earlier, when she didn’t have to kill him. She’d been so _convinced,_ after that, that nothing worse could possibly happen. And perhaps this isn’t worse. It’s preferable, certainly, to her being the one to pull the trigger. Isn’t it? But it’s hard to tell, from the way that Riza’s thoughts scream for something, _anything,_ to come out of that empty circle.

It’s a long minute. It’s a long few minutes. Just like Alphonse once held her back from the Colonel’s flames, the chimera now hold her back from crawling on hands and knees to get just a little closer. Not that they have to expend much effort—she collapses like a rag doll if she so much as blinks too hard.

But she still tries. And she still watches. And she prays, although she hasn’t prayed in her entire life, and she pleads with God to keep him alive.

He’s blind.

There’s a confusing scuffle with the Elrics and their teacher and their father and _the_ Father. He thinks the world might have ended. No, it definitely ended, but someone more clever than he was fixed it.

It’s. an interesting few minutes.

He’s spit back out in the same room he was taken from, and Riza’s there to greet him. The relief of her still being alive is merely a moment in the greater tidal wave of action—he asks, _can you stand?_ and she understands immediately.

They carry each other out of the labyrinth and into the sunlight.


	8. Living

Riza serves as his eyes. Roy is more powerful than ever before.

The war is won.

She collapses halfway to the medical tent. Armstrong steps in at that point and takes her from Roy’s stumbling grip. He can hear the concern in his voice as he tries to follow after them, but they both know she’s in good hands with Alex.

For what feels like the first time in her life, she lets herself rest.

Marcoh finds him surprisingly quickly. The philosopher’s stone feels warm in his hand. Roy agrees to the plan on the condition that Havoc is healed first. And then, as an afterthought, asks him to stay for a while—he knows Riza is in the makeshift operating theater nearby, and he’d like to have it on hand in case things go wrong. It’s not selfish, he tells himself, because Riza is just as important to any potential restoration effort as he is, and it’s not like Havoc would thank him anyways if chose to pick Havoc’s legs over Riza’s life.

If anything really _is_ selfish, it’s that Roy has the gall to think he’s getting off a little too easy. As if this is a blessing for him instead of for Ishval. But then, maybe it’s both. Maybe he can just be grateful that it’s both.

He’s the first one there when she wakes up. She’s the first one he sees when his vision is finally returned. It goes about how everyone expects—they pretend as if they’re not crying, and everyone else pretends right along.

Grumman gives them five years. Five years for Ishval, and five years until the Fuhrership.

_I’m old. If I want to live to see my granddaughter’s wedding, I should start planning for my retirement now, before I get wrapped up into more of you young people’s games. Although, I should say, I might consider giving you a little more time to prepare if you agree to marry her this summer, General._

An interesting thought. But there’s no doubt in Roy’s mind that the offer will be repeated for the fall, and for the winter, and for the spring and the next summer and every season after that.

 _Five years sounds wonderful,_ he maintains.

 _But you will marry her,_ Grumman says. And there’s a sudden edge to his voice that Roy recognizes from tactical meetings and battlefields. _You won’t leave her alone, will you?_

It’s probably the first time anyone’s talked about it so seriously. The first time it’s been anything more than a joke, or a hint, or a part to play.

 _I will,_ he promises. _Once I’m Fuhrer._

_What was that about?_ she asks him.

He’s got the goofiest grin on his face. It reminds him of when they were young, when they were out on the river, when he’d catch him staring over the rim of a book.

 _Nothing much,_ Roy says. _Now, about those field rotations…_

Five years pass quickly. There are protests and riots on both sides, and Riza and Roy have their fair share of failure. At the end, they’re proud of what they accomplish, but there’s still so much more. They’re lucky to have Scar and Miles, who stay behind and serve as ambassadors, and they’re lucky that they have others, new friends among Amestrians and the Ishvalans alike, who promise to continue the work.

They return to Central. The world learns of a new Fuhrer.

_I want to do this properly,_ Roy says.

_General._

He’s filled the room with flowers. She didn’t even _notice_ with how absorbed she’d been in her resignation paperwork, but now she’s looked up and the room is full of hydrangeas and carnations and lilies and roses and so many colors she’s sure he must have visited at least three _separate_ florists.

They’re in their office. They’re in their office, and she hasn’t even submitted the paperwork yet, and Havoc and Breda and Fuery are vacating the room at record speeds.

 _I know we’ve talked about it already,_ he starts again, _and I know even before then, it wasn’t exactly a surprise. But I wanted to make this special. Because you, Riza Hawkeye, Elizabeth, my love—you’re special to me. You mean so much to me. You’re amazing, and I can’t stand to spend another second pretending I don’t love everything about you. So, please—_

She’s kissing him. In their _office._ And she hasn’t even resigned yet.

 _Well_ , she thinks, as he pulls her closer. _I’ve made worse mistakes_.

It’s funny. Roy had gone out of his way to make a fair council—a board of representatives made up of people from all over Amestris, based primarily on population along with several other balancing factors.

And, as such, Roy had known to expect controversy when he first submitted his argument for a formal trial for all of Ishval’s war criminals. After all, there were people who stood to both win _and_ lose if something so dramatic were to take place, and with a board this diverse, it seemed impossible to expect anything less than a full-blown battle taking place in this conference hall.

What he hadn’t expected was for the overwhelming majority—including the small group of Ishvalan councilmen—to completely and utterly reject his plan.

 _He_ was the one arguing for it, in the end. He stood at his podium and listed his own crimes and he demanded justice. Because. Because how could he do otherwise?

He tracks down Miles afterwards. Demands an explanation.

He’s scolded for it, which he deserves, because it’s obvious and also speaks to Mustang’s own penchant for selfish self-sacrifice—Mustang had just gone into a room of people that _he_ had given power, that _he_ had helped, and he’d asked them to kill him. And even if that’s right and that’s _justice,_ it’s not something that will realistically ever happen. Ishval will never send their greatest ally to his death, no matter how much some may hate the necessity of it.

 _I wasn’t trying to throw away what I’ve done,_ Mustang argues, though again, he’s not sure why. _And I don’t deny that my life has been valuable in giving the people power. But this is about preventing the past from happening again. This is about consequences, no matter how hard they may seem._

Miles looks him down through glasses that are not red-tinted. _Perhaps you have a point. But still. I think the work you do alive is much more valuable than the work you’ll do when you’re dead. And, apparently, the rest of the council agrees with me._

_So we get to live,_ Riza says into her teacup.

 _We get to live,_ Roy agrees.

They’re sitting at their kitchen table. It’s a nice kitchen table—a wedding gift from Falman and his wife. And the tablecloth on top is from Gracia, something she’d left behind during a picnic with Elicia and had told them they could keep.

They’ve got windows that face the sunrise, and Riza’s boxes, even after all these years, still sit unpacked beneath the sills.

 _We should tell the Elrics,_ Roy says. _I think they’re going to kill me for submitting it in the first place, but I know they’ve been worried sick._

She laughs, a little too loud. _They’re not the only ones who’ve been worried sick about it._

He laughs too. It’s been a long. few months? Few years? A long life?

 _We should celebrate,_ he continues. _We could visit Christmas, or Havoc—_ he stops. He considers. _We could have kids now, Riza._

She laughs again, and sounds better than the first time, and she’s smiling like he’s never said anything more wonderful.

_Kids? Multiple? I’m a little old for that. Maybe just one._

_We can discuss the details later,_ he says. And he smiles at her too. _Or if you want, we could just get a new dog. We could just babysit those Elric monsters, stop keeping our distance. We could—we get to live, Riza. Did you ever think…?_

 _Not really,_ and now there are tears in the corners of her eyes, _but I’m glad I got to be surprised._

He’s never been so happy to wipe her tears away.


End file.
